New Japan Pro Wrestling on AXS TV Episode 12 Workrate Report

1. Alex Koslov & Rocky Romero vs. The Young Bucks (5/3/14)

We only get about 1/3 of this due to clipping and really that's probably for the best. What's shown is good and amusing, but I'm having a hard time imagining 15 minutes of this. Even in the 5 minutes shown we get Romero and Koslov showing off their comedy chops which was insufferable enough as it was. Still this was plenty entertaining. I really liked the Bucks here as they hit all their marks. NJ crowd seemed into them, all their double team offense was on point, they made Romero's offense look good which is a true talent, etc. Their stuff tombstone still looks devastating and yet is still more of a transition move, but their finisher looked great with Matt doing a Finlay roll to set up a Nick 450, to set up a Matt moonsault. Speaking of comedy chops, Barnett was really ramping up the yuks during this one. Coulda done without that.

Oh and to tally up the Matt D v. Young Bucks count, we'll go ahead and go

MATT D: 1
YOUNG BUCKS: 2

I liked the Bucks here, what can I say.

2. Kota Ibushi vs. Ryusuke Taguchi (5/3/14)

Well...not really sure what the point of showing this was. They clipped it all to hell, maybe showing 3 minutes of it? But again instead of showing just the "good parts" they showed stuff like opening headlock takeovers and other test of strength type exchanges. If you know that you only have a few minutes to put over a match, do we really need to set the mood by showing us "in case you were wondering, this match started like almost every New Japan match you've ever seen". After some pointless feel out stuff we eventually cut to Taguchi's bad offense (I do a sit out powerbomb and you kinda maybe fall chin first into my knees?!) and eventually Ibushi wins it. Ibushi is a guy I really like, Taguchi showed next to nothing here, and really this show had a really fun Ishii match that isn't getting shown so that instead we can watch 3 minutes of Taguchi and 5 minutes of Rocky Romero. Priorities?

3. Kazuchika Okada vs. AJ Styles (5/3/14)

Okada has a great sit down interview pre match, going over how he was caught off guard by Styles, saying he really wasn't *that* great in the U.S., and was in his decline. Then put over the Styles Clash by saying that he had taken it from Tanahashi before and thought it was no big deal, but taking it from Styles was a whole other level because Styles "must adjust his weight differently". That's so damn awesome.

And the match itself works about like I thought it would, with enough good stuff to make it enjoyable. Still it was structured like a lot of Okada matches, with his opponent doing lots of stuff with the sense of "Okada's going to take a bunch of offense and then at some point just start going for Rainmaker lariats". And that most definitely happened. And we also had tons of limp dick Bullet Club interference. Boy is that lame. Interference is one thing, but Bullet Club's interference rarely even looks good. Okada gets dumped to the floor and we get just bad stomps from Anderson. That's the brutal interference? Stomps that don't make contact? I'm sure plenty of NJPW purists were tickled at Yujiro interference leading directly to an IWGP title change. The end of match interference was handled embarrassingly as well, with Anderson just grabbing and holding Red Shoes so he couldn't see the interference, and then the run ins. Just lazy and it came off really poor. Styles looked really good throughout, my favorite spot being a nasty springboard loaded up punch. Styles worked great opposite Okada and really knew how to feed into everything; reversals from Okada's signature stuff all came off natural and logical, especially uncoiling from the Rainmaker to hit the Pele kick. But damn all the Bullet Club stuff just comes off so forced, really took what could have fun a fun match into "whatever" territory.